Field Research
by Vega Black62
Summary: Neville hears an interesting critique of his own heroism while abroad doing field research.  Just a little triple drabble.
1. Chapter 1

"What I don't understand is why the kid killed the snake."

Neville looked up from the field notes he was correcting. The members of the research team sat around the campfire talking. The chief propagator spoke. He hated field research and vented his dislike by engaging in endless debates with his botanist friend over Ministry politics and the relative merits of Quidditch teams. Neville normally ignored them. "The kid is standing in front of You-know-Who and he has a sword. Why doesn't he cut his head off instead of the snake's?" the propagator asked. "One stroke and it's good-bye Voldemort."

Most of the members of the expedition were plant-hunting abroad when the Ministry fell three years ago and waited out the war at Beaubatons. Their knowledge of the war was gleaned from foreign newspapers and was limited at best.

"Harry Potter told him to kill the snake." Neville answered. "He only had one chance and he chose to do what Harry asked."

They turned toward Neville, the newest and least experienced member of the troop. "No," the propagator said, "that doesn't make sense. The kid ran out after Lord Voldemort. That's who he was after."

Tradescant, the expedition leader let out a small bark of amusement.

"Who would want him to kill the snake anyway?" the propagator continued. "It was a brilliant moment that rallied the fighters but a mistake."

"I think he was rattled by the burning hat on his head." The botanist answered. "Made the wrong move. It saved the day of course. But unplanned."

Neville saw recognition slowly dawn on the face of the girl sitting next to him. He caught her eye and shook his head. She smiled back at him and watched with amusement as the debate continued.


	2. You should tell them

She followed him from the fire side. He was stooped over just inside the tent stowing away his notebooks and field notes.

"You better tell them," she said. "It'd be kinder, you know. Eventually someone else will and by then they'll have only made bigger fools of themselves."

He straitened up and joined her outside. The light of their wands were just bright enough for her to make out his face.

"They didn't really make fools of themselves," Neville responded. "What they said made sense if you didn't know what the battle was like."

He frowned. She thought he looked embarrassed. She imagined that he was trying to decide if he should have kept completely quiet or if he should have stood up and declared himself the hero-snake-killer in front of everyone.

"Don't feel bad for them. They're always nattering on about things they don't understand," she said_._ She hadn't recognized him from the newspaper pictures. That made sense, it had been three years. He looked different now. His hair was short and he no longer looked like someone had just beaten him.

He had scars on his face. She wondered if he had gotten them in the battle. She supposed he had.

"Why _did_ you kill the snake instead of Voldemort?" she asked. Then as she spoke she remembered the Hor- thing, the piece of the soul that kept Voldemort from dying. It was in the snake.

He answered her as if he knew what she was thinking. "I didn't know about the Horcrux then. It really was like I said at the fire. Harry asked me to do it. I didn't know why. I just did what Harry said."

He sounded tired. She guessed that he had had this conversation before, probably many times.

"Someone asks you to do something and you just do it?" she asked.

He smiled. He grinned. She realized that he thought she was funny.

"Oh, I think Harry wished I would just do what I was told more often," Neville said. "Of course I did what Harry asked; he'd fought Voldemort already more than once. If he didn't know what needed to be done, no one did."

It was odd hearing someone talk of Harry Potter in such a familiar and natural way.

Neville was serious again. "You don't understand what it was like," he said. "None of us had talked to Harry for a year. When he returned to Hogwarts and the battle began, we barely had time to muster ourselves before Voldemort attacked."

He looked at her for a moment, took a deep breathe and began again: "When he told me about the snake, we were losing. Voldemort gave us an hour to gather the dead and wounded and that was almost over. There was no time to ask questions."

He spoke slowly carefully like the words were hard to say. He wasn't describing a great adventure, but a war in which he saw people -- maybe friends – die.

"As if in the middle of a battle I needed an explanation from Harry Potter before I did what he asked," Neville said.


	3. Flashback: Plans

"My future plans? You couldn't call it a plan, but I know what I want to do," Neville said. He tossed them a book, Magical Plants of the Atlas Mountains. The author knelt on a mountainside, surrounded by a sea of stones, and blossoms like pink goblets.

"This bloke travels the world discovering new plants. Some never seen before – others that people have only heard of -- experts even. Herbologists from around the world trade their rarest stuff for his seeds."

"I'd love to travel. See my favorites in the wild. Find something really rare." He frowned. "I don't know if I can though."

"You will," Luna said. "I did. I searched for the Crumple-Horned Snorkack."

Neville smiled weakly.

"Trips like that are expensive," Ginny said.

"It's not money." He looked away. "It's my mum and dad. People don't understand. They think they do, but they don't. Mum and Dad are helpless. They frustrate the kindest people and not everyone is kind. You have to look after them even at St. Mungo's – check on them, ask questions. My gran does it, and it's work."

Neville turned to face Ginny. He was frowning. "They like my visits, and they don't have much to like. If I disappeared for a while, they'd forget. They'd be scared of me."

"We're all they have, me and Gran. And when she can't anymore; there's only me. It's the way it is."

"When you come back from school they know you. You could travel for the length of a term and they wouldn't forget you," Ginny said.

"Your gran wouldn't want to trust you with them for awhile. She likes to run things," Luna said.

Neville laughed. "That she does. I'll be fifty before she trusts me with them. Lots of time to go plant hunting."


	4. Flashback: The scent of Corsica

Neville awoke early in the morning of his first plant expedition. He rode on the back of a Thestral in a basket small enough on the outside to be strapped to the horse's bony body but large enough on the inside for him to sleep comfortably. "Wandless" by the Angry Mudbloods played as it must have all night. He'd fallen asleep while working. The herbarium samples he'd been studying were scattered around the floor. Neville stood and looked over the wicker walls. They were flying east toward the sunrise. The black silhouette of the mountains of Corsica stood against the red of the sky and the reflected red of the sea. Behind him the water and the sky were dark. The other baskets remained quiet, their occupants asleep.

He studied the skeletal head, black mane and ears of his Thestral. The others couldn't see the beasts. All his old friends could, but then they had fought at the Battle of Hogwarts. Neville was reminded of how different their lives had been than most people's. The thought was comforting; it explained a lot.

A breeze blew and with the smell of the sea came another complex and powerful. Neville realized what had woken him, -- the scent of Corsica. He had heard of this. The perfume of the island, was so strong it could carry for miles. The familiar fragrances of lavender and rosemary were mixed with those he'd had to breathe in and consider: the berry scent of myrtle and the sweet curry of l'immortelle d'Italie, and the honey, smoky, woody smell of rockrose and labdanum, a scent like flowers and leather at the same time. Finally underneath the sweet and earthy he detected the bitter notes of the mastic trees.

The basket tilted steeply as the Thestrals prepared to land. He sat, gathered his papers and inhaled the essence of the island.


	5. Flashback: Not a Bad Day

Neville slipped away from Hogsmeade, taking the lane that led past the shops on the outskirts of town, into the hedgerow lined by-ways beyond. He walked slowly, stooped over, searching the ground for the rare plants that often nestled at the feet of these shrubs, until he found the break in the plant wall that revealed the path that ran into the distant hills. He turned onto it and went on until Hogsmeade shrunk to a small collection of insignificant buildings behind him.

He didn't think anyone would miss him. He wasn't exactly the most popular bloke on a Saturday in Hogsmeade. No one minded having him around; they just didn't care if he wasn't. Harry, Ron and Hermione included him when they could. Dean and Seamus were a lot of fun and they liked him. Even Ernie's and Hannah's crowd were glad to have him join them and even asked sometimes. They were all friends, but they didn't plan on him being with them. They just thought it was all right if he was. That wasn't a big deal, but sometimes it wasn't very satisfying.

After walking for awhile, he saw Asphodels blazing like beacons far beyond him and he head for them, trudging through wet spongy ground, until he spotted a Sundew amid the bog plants. He knelt beside it and gave himself omniocular eyes, so he could watch the plant magnified many times over. It was lovely; each tiny hair, a deadly tentacle that was crowned with a drop of mucilage that glistened in the sun like a jewel. A midge brushed against one of the shining specks of dew. The tentacle it decorated, closed over the insect, rolling down into itself, capturing the creature, just as its wizard cousin, the Venomous Tentacula would grab its prey. Neville knew this was a Muggle plant and yet it behaved so like the wizard form that he wondered how alike the two really were. How much of the Venomous Tentacula's behavior wasn't a product of magic at all but of the same tropisms shared with the non-magical of its kind?

He wondered if Sprout had ever considered this. It was worth studying he thought and then he smiled at his idea. Here was more proof that he wasn't a complete wizard. Most students at Hogwarts spent their time thinking about how different the magical world was from the Muggle one and wanted to study how alike they were. He laughed a little, embarrassed even though he was alone.

He examined the plants in the bog, drawing and writing about them in a little notebook he kept on a string around his neck until the sun began to sink and he knew it was time to head home. When he reached the lane that led back to Hogsmeade he preformed the cleaning and drying charms that Hermione had taught him. It hadn't been a bad day. He'd enjoyed himself and thought about some things.

No one in Hogsmeade had noticed he'd been gone.


End file.
